tall man, small world

NOTICE ME!

I was just outside on the balcony, watching the rain, listening to the gentle drumming of each drop on the timber beside me and the car roof below me; listening to the birds twittering, the gentle rustling of the early spring leaves in the breeze; listening to the… THUMP THUMP THUMP of music from a nearby house, so loud I could hear it outside and down the street.

FFS, as they say. I muttered to myself how they should go take their music, in their cars with the loud exhausts, and go play in the shopping centre car park. I’m all for having fun, I play music loud sometimes but if my neighbour wanted to listen to it I’d lend her the CD.

This is part of the obsession with being noticed, of desire to be the centre of attention that leads some to crave fame via TV “talent” shows and others to make their presence known not by making or doing something creatively, significantly, interestingly, or even the age-old way of being stylish or glamorous but by effectively shouting LOOK AT ME!!!

Some ways they do this are amusing, you hear a loud, rasping exhaust note outside and when you look the car isn’t a throbbing V8 muscle car or a grunting V12 Ferrari, but then you didn’t expect it to be, it’s a 1.2 litre Fiesta, Corsa or Saxo being thrashed to within an inch of its life and trundling by at about 15 MPH. It’s driver thinks it sounds powerful, he thinks everyone’s impressed, he thinks his girlfriend in the passenger seat is impressed. Nobody’s impressed.

Others stand outside pubs, conversations escalating in volume as though the switch on the TV remote’s got stuck, all needing to be the loudest and probably paying little attention to what everyone else is saying, ironically.

The same extends to work, Facebook, Twitter – people saying anything to be seen, to be recognised.